Looking at the hundreds of indigenous soldiers attacking from the opposite side, Wu Jintang felt very unhappy.
The matchlock guns, spears, and armors held by the indigenous soldiers opposite were all produced by the Chu State itself and exported through the early Oriental Trading Company.
Therefore, I couldn't help but feel very unhappy about the behavior of Dongyang Trading Company in its early years.
But if you are unhappy, you will still be unhappy, and the battle will still have to be fought.
As a senior army soldier who served in the Army for ten years and was twice deployed to the Jinshan region of North America, and retired only after reaching the rank of sergeant, Wu Jintang has rich combat experience with Native Americans.
He knew very well that the natives on the opposite side seemed to be holding matchlocks, but the fighting style in Shanghai was still in a very primitive tribal combat mode. To be honest, these indigenous soldiers holding matchlocks were not as powerful as the indigenous countries in Southeast Asia. Woolen cloth.
Therefore, even though he only had about fifty troops, he still did not retreat. Instead, he ordered his troops to form a fighting formation.
This is not only the fact that our own side has mounted infantry carrying horses, they have higher mobility and can retreat quickly at any time when the battle is unfavorable.
It's not because they have no choice but to retreat. Behind them is Songxi Village, their home.
But because they are confident enough to defeat the invading enemy.
Regarding the indigenous soldiers on the opposite side, Wu Jintang dared to say that it was unrealistic to annihilate them all, but defeating them was not a big problem.
Why?
Do you really think that the 21-year-old percussion pistols and revolvers in the hands of Wu Jintang and other militiamen are fake!
Not to mention that in addition to Wu Jintang, there are six retired soldiers in the militia, serving as captains of various squads in the militia.
With these retired soldiers and the senior retired sergeant Wu Jintang as the backbone, to put it bluntly, with these No. 50 militiamen who have experienced frequent and long military training, let alone fight against these indigenous tribes who have no rules and backward weapons and equipment. Soldier.
Even if they faced the same number of regular Spanish troops equipped with flintlock muskets, they could still fight a dozen... Anyway, they were all mounted infantry, with stronger mobility and the ability to take the initiative on the battlefield.
The fifty militiamen quickly got on their horses and formed a fighting formation under Wu Jintang's order.
Among them, about thirty people from the first, second, and fourth teams were on the front line, and they continued to advance with a 65mm light field gun.
The twelve members of the third team to which Zhao Gantong belonged began to mount their horses and conduct flanking maneuvers.
At this time, the indigenous soldiers on the opposite side also discovered the militia of Songxi Village. There was a slight pause at first, but soon dozens of indigenous soldiers on horseback rushed over, as did a large group of indigenous infantry behind them. Charge after them with a spear or matchlock in hand.
Looking at this, it seems that they want to take advantage of the absolute numerical advantage to rush over and fight.
At this time, Wu Jintang decisively ordered the 65mm light field artillery to be deployed on the spot to prepare for the bombardment.
This 65mm light field gun was quickly deployed. The deployment of this light field gun was very simple and convenient.
Just separate the artillery and the lead vehicle. Two artillerymen work together to push the separated artillery for rapid aiming. At the same time, one artilleryman leads the horse away, while the lead vehicle and the ammunition box are left in place.
A gunner took out a 65mm spherical solid artillery shell with a wooden holder and a propellant pack directly from the ammunition box of the lead vehicle.
In order to increase the rate of fire, the Chu army's 65mm series field guns began to use quantitative propellant packs in the early days of the Unification War.
This kind of quantitative propellant package is made by weighing a certain amount of propellant in advance and wrapping it in paper. It is very convenient to use. Just put the entire paper package of quantitative propellant into the barrel.
The use of paper-packed quantitative propellant packs is an important factor in the Chu army's 65mm field gun's rate of fire being able to reach two rounds per minute, and a skilled gun crew can even reach three rounds.
In fact, quantitative propellant packets are also widely used in other artillery of the Chu army. Some propellant packets used by medium and large-caliber artillery are even packaged in expensive raw silk.
Although the price of raw silk propellant packs is a bit more expensive, compared with the cost of the propellant itself required for a large-caliber artillery to fire a shell, the cost of raw silk is actually nothing.
Moreover, the advantage of raw silk is that it burns very completely, and the propellant will not have too many residues, which greatly reduces the smoldering situation and makes subsequent loading more convenient. This is a very heavy gun for medium and large calibers, especially naval guns. .
At present, the propellants of the Chu army's medium and large-caliber naval guns are basically wrapped in raw silk.
The Army uses relatively little raw silk, and only a small number of long-barreled cannons are used. Most field guns still use cheap and easy-to-obtain paper as the packaging material for propellants.
The main reason is that the artillery used by the army is generally small and medium-caliber artillery. At the same time, the number of equipment is large, the use is very frequent, and the overall consumption of ammunition is relatively large. Therefore, until now, the army still uses paper-packed quantitative propellant packs. There are very few raw silk propellant packs... Of course, it can also be said that you are poor and can't afford them.
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The 65mm field gun in the Songxi Village Army was completed by four people from advancing to deploying to loading, and the process was extremely fast. It didn't take long for the natives on the opposite side to form a fighting formation, and they even Before they even had time to get within 500 meters, the 65mm light field gun from the Songxi Militia was already loaded and ready to fire.
Such light and fast deployment and loading is why the Chu army has been reluctant to abandon this light artillery that seems to be not very powerful and cannot even launch grenades.
This thing is so convenient to use.
Furthermore, the range and power of this thing don't seem to be very good, but this is a relative term. It is definitely not enough to deal with the Chu army itself, but it is used to deal with European colonial armies that have no artillery or only old and outdated artillery. , that’s one shot at a time.
Wu Jintang saw that his own artillery was ready, and then he saw that dozens of indigenous soldiers on the opposite side had crossed the 500-meter line.
At this distance, the 65mm field artillery already has a certain degree of lethality, especially the smoothbore artillery of the Chu army today. Even solid artillery shells widely use wooden holders to increase the air tightness of the shells when they are fired. Obtain greater chamber pressure and exit kinetic energy.
This also brings greater range and power.
However, after years of development, the Chu Army's wooden ammunition holders are no longer the same as the early ammunition holders. The biggest feature is that the Chu Army's new wooden ammunition holders are not permanently fixed with the artillery shells. The wooden stock will separate from the cannonball.
The part connected to the cannonball is actually not too strong, and it can usually be pulled out by just pulling it by hand.
At first, this was just to facilitate the temporary replacement of the bullet holder on the battlefield, and to create a loose bullet holder that was easy to replace. However, after actual use, it was found that this unstable bullet holder would fall off due to wind resistance after the gun was ejected from the chamber. , which in turn allows the cannonball to reduce wind resistance, gain greater speed and kinetic energy, and thereby increase power.
So the Chu Army simply conducted special testing and research and development, and finally designed a wooden holder that would be directly separated from the shell after the cannon was ejected from the chamber.
After all, the function of the wooden holder is only to ensure airtightness when the artillery is fired. If it is a grenade, it also needs to stabilize the angle when the artillery is ejected from the chamber to ensure that the metal disc fuse in the grenade is ignited.
After the cannon is ejected from the chamber, the wooden holder is of no use and may even become a drag.
Because the spherical cannonball will roll irregularly and rapidly after being ejected from the chamber, the existence of the wooden bullet holder will make the trajectory more complex and affect the accuracy. At the same time, the bullet holder will increase wind resistance, thereby affecting the power.
Therefore, the Chu army finally came up with the separated ammunition holder based on actual use experience.
With the sound of a cannon, a solid cannonball flew out of the muzzle. As soon as the cannonball came out of the cannon, the wooden holder at the end of the cannonball was directly separated from the cannonball under the action of wind resistance, leaving only a black shell. The spherical solid cannonball flew towards the sky, drew a slightly curved curve in the sky, and fell into the midst of dozens of indigenous cavalry.
Although the 65mm solid artillery shell looks small in size, and the distance of more than 400 meters and nearly 500 meters is a bit far for the 65mm light field gun, the lethality it brings is still very sufficient.
The solid cannonball landed first, then bounced on the solid ground. After the first bounce, it flew directly towards an indigenous cavalryman.
Because the trajectory is relatively straight, and because the bounce range is not large, it only bounces about one meter. After the shell bounced, it directly hit the shoulder of an indigenous cavalryman.
But the cannonball still did not stop, but continued to move forward and fall. During the fall, it hit the left front hoof of a war horse under the command of an indigenous cavalry, and then continued to bounce on the ground... and continuously hit the horses of two indigenous cavalry horses. leg.
Ricochet tactics are the most practical and effective tactics when smoothbore artillery fires solid bullets. The Chu army's gunners maintain a certain curved trajectory when conditions permit, so that the shells can bounce.
If this condition is allowed, it naturally means that the ground is solid enough.
If it is on soft ground, solid shells will not bounce.
Just the first shot caused losses to the four cavalrymen on the opposite side. One of the cavalrymen was directly seriously injured. The other three cavalrymen seemed not to be hit, but their horses were broken while running. The leg attack also pulled the cavalry off their horses, causing unknown casualties.
Moreover, the sound of artillery also caused panic among the indigenous cavalry on the opposite side. Some indigenous cavalry could not even control the horses under their crotches.
Horses are easily frightened, especially the sound of gunfire.
It takes a long time to train horses to adapt to the sound of gunfire on the battlefield.
The natives on the opposite side obviously did not have the conditions to allow their war horses to undergo such adaptive training. Therefore, the shelling caused turmoil among the native cavalry horses.
Seeing that he had gotten off to a good start, Wu Jintang smiled slightly, and then ordered: "Prepare the revolver, follow me and charge forward!"
Now the natives on the opposite side have come up, but the biggest threat is not the hundreds of indigenous infantry on the opposite side. Those indigenous infantry do not pose much of a threat to them.
The real threat was the dozens of indigenous cavalry on the opposite side.
Although these indigenous cavalry did not even have much armor, and all they held were matchlock guns, spears, and bows, the mobility brought by the horses was enough to pose a certain threat to them.
It just so happened that Wu Jintang saw that the infantry and cavalry on the opposite side were somewhat out of touch. He also saw that the indigenous cavalry on the opposite side had their formations disrupted due to his own artillery fire. Many of the indigenous cavalry's horses were even out of control. He immediately knew that the opportunity was not to be missed. Come again.
Without any hesitation, he rushed forward with his militiamen.
However, it was not like the cavalry of the regular army, who directly waved their sabers and formed the iconic wall-mounted dense formation of the Chu army's cavalry to launch a charge... but prepared to ride up and shoot with a revolver.
Although everyone in the Songxi Village militia has a horse, they are really not cavalry... They are just a group of infantry who have trained with muskets for some time. You can ask them to ride on horseback, or even shoot on horseback and so on. , after all, I often train on weekdays.
But if you ask them to rush forward and kill with their sabers like the light cavalry of the regular army, they really can't do it.
Although they are also equipped with sabers!
Therefore, forget about lining up and charging with sabers. It would be great if you can ride up on horseback and shoot with a revolver on horseback.
This is also a tactic often used by the Chu State's mounted militia and even regular army cavalry in North America when facing indigenous enemies.
There’s no other reason than that the revolver is so easy to use!
The most advanced Tianwu revolver at present has a tumbling, forward-flip-proof magazine, six rounds of bullets, rear-rifling, and paper-wrapped fixed-loading ammunition. It has a very high success rate of firing and rarely misfires. It shoots at the same time. During the process, you can use the wheel to fire.
It also uses paper-cased fixed-loading ammunition, which is very convenient to load.
To a certain extent, the firepower density of this revolver and the sustained firepower brought by secondary reloading are very powerful, and it is undoubtedly the first.
However, even some other revolvers have very similar firepower density.
As for the revolver, its biggest feature is that it fires continuously. It can be regarded as the earliest semi-automatic firearm in the world. Even the smoothbore revolver equipped by the Chu army for a long time also has the ability to fire continuously.
This is why revolvers first served on a large scale in cavalry units, and then gradually served in other arms.
The cavalry loves this stuff.
Although Wu Jintang was not a cavalryman, he still liked to use revolvers.
I saw him holding the horse rein in one hand, and in the other hand a Xijiang brand 11mm revolver front-loading rifled pistol produced by the Guangdong and Guangxi Arms Company, which was already loaded and ready to fire. The Xijiang brand series revolver was Chu The revolver front-loading rifled pistol that is in large-scale service in the cavalry units stationed overseas is also the favorite of many militiamen in overseas markets.
It's not because of other performance or anything, it's purely because it's not easy to rust in humid and hot weather, it's easy to maintain, and has a very low failure rate. You won't have any problems no matter how you use it.
The gun products of Guangzhou Weapons Company have always had very unique technical processes in terms of corrosion resistance. This company was the first in China to use the bluing process to prevent rust on gun barrels.
The company's firearms products have always been popular with overseas troops.
The Xijiang brand 11mm caliber series revolvers are not only corrosion-resistant, easy to maintain, and easy to use, but also very powerful. With one shot, the enemy's war horse can be knocked down with one shot.
This gun is very popular among militiamen in this poor place in America. Even if the militiamen are not issued pistols, many militiamen will buy one with their own money.
As for ordinary people, they don't use it much. After all, this gun has a large caliber and a large recoil. It is not designed to be used for self-defense, but as a cavalry pistol. Its use requires special training, otherwise when shooting It's easy to injure your wrist.
Civilians in North America generally prefer two weapons from Hebei Arms Company for their daily self-defense weapons. One is the old-style front-loading smoothbore revolver, the He-12 type, with a caliber of only nine millimeters, low recoil, and decent accuracy. Simple to use.
Because the recoil is very small, women can easily control this gun!
In the past year, the He-13 revolver has stolen the limelight... This thing is actually the civilian version of the Tian-5 military and police breech-loading rifle. Although the name is different and the details are slightly different, they are basically the same. Same thing.
Tianwu Type/He Type 13 revolvers have almost stolen the limelight of all pistols in the past two years. There is no way, their performance is really awesome...
It's just that this thing is too expensive, and most people are reluctant to buy it. Even the military is reluctant to use it in large quantities.
These militiamen in Songxi Village are not rich people, so they are naturally reluctant to buy a He-13 revolver worth hundreds of dollars. Even if the gun uses paper-packed fixed-loading ammunition or a breech-loading rifled pistol, its performance is absolutely Good enough, but still no one bought it.
A Xijiang revolver front-loading rifled cavalry pistol costing just over ten Chu Yuan was a much better deal.
Wu Jintang and the other militiamen behind him basically went to the battlefield with this Xijiang brand cavalry pistol, and a group of militiamen on horseback trotted forward.
At this time, our own 65mm field artillery fired twice more. The indigenous cavalry on the opposite side killed and wounded several more people, and the formation became more scattered. Several of them even left the formation and ran away without knowing where they were.
Seeing that the time was almost up, Wu Jintang immediately led the militiamen to accelerate and rushed towards the remaining thirty or so scattered indigenous cavalry on the opposite side.
The number of people seems to be about the same, but the formation of the Chu army militia is more dense. After all, although these militiamen are all young and strong ordinary farmers, their daily training in the off-farm time is taken care of by retired non-commissioned officers like Wu Jintang, and they also There are complete militia training guidance materials and documents compiled by military organizations.
That is to say, the training time is shorter, and the interval between each training is longer, but: the training subjects are basically not much different from those of the regular army.
When fighting this time, the tools used by the regular army were naturally used.
When the cavalry attacked, they used standard half-turn tactics. The cavalry rushed up in three waves, then turned at high speed. During the turning process, they used revolvers to shoot at the enemy natives dozens of meters away. .
What’s even more funny is that after the indigenous cavalry on the opposite side were attacked, they didn’t rush forward to fight with cold weapons. Instead, they stopped and used matchlock guns and bows to fight back...
In fact, the best solution for these indigenous cavalry at this time is to rush forward and directly attack the Chu army's militia with sabers or spears.
At that time, the cavalry of the Ming Army, Dongdu and Mongolia especially liked to use this move to deal with the Chu Army's pistol cavalry. They beat the Chu Army's early pistol cavalry to death, and finally led the Chu Army to completely abolish the pistol cavalry. .
It also forced the Chu army to be bitten by a snake once and be afraid of straw ropes for ten years. In the past twenty years, they have not welcomed the pistol cavalry. Many cavalry generals in the cavalry unit do not like to use pistols in combat.
Even though there are better revolvers now, many older generation cavalry generals still reject the use of pistols by cavalry, thinking that this is a sign of cowardice.
They firmly believe that real cavalry should ride horses upright, wield sabers or spears, charge forward in a dense formation, and crush all enemies along the way.
In today's battle, if it were a regular army light cavalry, they would never use half-turn tactics. If the cavalry commander was more enlightened, he might let the cavalry use revolvers before engaging the enemy. Hit a wave to take advantage of the intensive and continuous firepower of the revolver. After hitting the enemy, use the saber again, but this is the limit.
More often than not, the Chu army's cavalry would charge directly in with their sabers waving!
Shoot, it doesn't exist!
However, Wu Jintang and the others are not regular cavalry. It is impossible to charge on horseback. It would be great to be able to shoot with pistols while riding horses.
Under the intensive firepower of revolvers, six or seven of the indigenous cavalry on the opposite side quickly fell. When they wanted to rush over to counterattack, Wu Jintang had already led the cavalry away.
Then Wu Jintang and the others loaded their revolvers under the eyes of the remaining indigenous cavalry!
The artillery bombarded again, and the militiamen used pistols to attack and shoot for the second time. After several people fell down, the indigenous cavalry on the opposite side could not hold on anymore and turned around and retreated towards the rear.
But it's not over yet.
The third team, which had carried out a roundabout attack before, came out from the rear position at this time, and seemed to block the retreat of the indigenous cavalry.
This scene made the remaining twenty or so indigenous cavalry extremely frightened. They dared to stay no longer, so they immediately changed direction and quickly retreated towards the other side. When they fled, there was no longer any formation at all, and everyone was scrambling to get ahead. , for fear of running too slowly.
Not to mention the hundreds of indigenous infantrymen at the rear...
As a result, the next few hundred indigenous infantrymen faced such a dilemma: they wanted to fight close to each other or organize a retreat, but they were unable to do so because of the full strength of the Chu army's cavalry. In the end, they could only watch helplessly on the opposite side. An artillery piece continued to bombard itself from hundreds of meters away, and each shot could cause considerable casualties.
What a waste... After receiving several rounds of artillery fire, and after the organization retreated and was pushed back by the Chu army militia, everyone immediately collapsed and ran for their lives.
If they don't escape for their lives, the Chu army can use artillery to beat them to death.
But it's not that easy to escape on this battlefield. After all, Songxi village soldiers are all on horseback. If you sprint a short distance, you can't run as fast as others with four legs.
As a result, a large number of indigenous casualties became inevitable.
In most battles, the casualties during the battle phase are generally not large. Even if the fighting seems fierce, in fact, most of the dead at this time are those in the front row. The personnel in the back row are all fine. Some troops in the front row were killed or injured. , which is nothing to the whole army.
Most casualties in battles often occur during the rout stage. Basically, eight out of ten who died in battle died during this stage.
This time the battle between the Songxi village soldiers and the Shanghe tribe was the same. In the early stage of the battle, the Songxi village soldiers actually killed only about 30 indigenous troops.
But in the subsequent stage of taking advantage of the victory, the Songxi village soldiers killed at least close to 300 enemy troops... The scene was like a group of running sheep being killed one by one from behind by the wolves behind them!
The wolves behind were effortless and even had the energy to drive away the sheep.
The sheep had no intention of resisting at all, and did not even dare to look back. They just ran away blindly towards the front until they were caught up by the Songxi Village militiamen on horseback from behind and hacked to death!
On June 19, the 31st year of Chengshun, Songxi Village in Shuanghe County, Jinshan Prefecture, North America, was attacked by more than 500 people from the Shanghe tribe. The Songxi Village Army first used artillery fire and then fired with cavalry pistols, severely injuring the enemy and then taking advantage of the victory. Cover up and kill, the enemy is defeated.
After this battle, the Shanghe tribe in the northwest of Shuanghe County suffered heavy losses and was no longer able to fight.
Three days later, more than a hundred regular light cavalry of the Chu army, together with more than 300 militiamen and horse infantry, attacked the Shanghe tribe in retaliation for the tribe's attack on Chu settlements and to deter other tribes.
The tribe saw a bad opportunity and tried to escape to the mountains to the east, away from the central area at the bottom of the Golden Valley where they had lived for generations. However, even so, they were caught up by the Chu army's cavalry and completely strangled!
The Shanghe tribe has completely become history!
